New Zealand is the most successful national team in the international history of rugby.[1]  Every national team seeks to test themselves against the Gold Standard of world rugby, the New Zealand national rugby union team known as the All Blacks.

And Australia is no different. In fact, as they are such close neighbors, the rivalry may be at its peak between these two countries.

The Bledisloe Cup is a rugby union competition between the national teams of Australia and New Zealand that has been competed for since the 1930s. The frequency at which the competition has been held and the number of matches played has varied, but as of 2016, it consists of an annual three-match series, with two of the matches also counting towards The Rugby Championship. New Zealand have had the most success, winning the trophy for the 46th time in 2017, while Australia have won 12 times.[2]

For more than 80 years Australian rugby has pitted itself our nearest neighbor and the most successful team in world rugby history – the New Zealand All Blacks.

To date the win loss record between these two teams is very uneven, with over two-thirds of the games being won by the All Blacks.[3]

Playing Venue	Played	Won by Australia	Won by NZ	Drawn	Australia points	NZ points
Australia	83	26	51	6	1270	1675
		31%	62%	7%
NZ	74	15	58	1	924	1623
		20%	79%	1%
Neutral	5	2	3	0	115	92
		40%	60%	0%
Overall	162	43	112	7	2286	3413
		27%	69%	4%	40%	60%

In summary, historically speaking, Australia has about a 30% chance of beating the All Blacks when playing at home (Australia), a 20% chance of winning when playing them in New Zealand (away), and a 40% chance of beating them when playing on a neutral venue. I suggest this last statistic is influenced by the fact that the ‘neutral venue’ games are typically ‘dead rubbers’ – in other words, they don’t matter as much to the Kiwis, as they have already won the series.

The 1980s – A decade of adversity for Australia

Despite the advent of the World Rugby Cup in 1987, when Australian’s want a true assessment of where they are at, you can always look to the trans-Tasman series.

It was 1980 and the All Black’s 24^th tour of Australia resulted in Australian dominating with wins in two of the three Test matches and retaining the Bledisloe up. [4]

The Australian Wallabies toured New Zealand in 1982, losing two of the three Test matches against the All Blacks, who regained the Bledisloe Cup from Australia. Australia had held the Bledisloe Cup since 1979.[5]

In 1983, in the single Bledisloe Cup game that was played in Sydney, New Zealand prevailed and retained the Cup.[6] In 1984 during the 25^th tour of Australia by the All Blacks, the touring team won thirteen of their fourteen games, including two of the three tests against Australia, retaining the Bledisloe Cup.[7]

In 1985, another year where the Cup was contested in only one Test, New Zealand achieved a narrow win on home soil.  In 1986 Australia took back the Bledisloe Cup winning two of the three Test matches on New Zealand soil.[8]  1987 saw a return to a single Test to determine the Cup. New Zealand convincingly beat the Wallabies 30-16 on Australian soil. [9]  The 26^th All Black tour of Australia in 1988 resulted in New Zealand retaining the Bledisloe Cup – again. And the score lines were amongst the worse for Australia during that decade. [10]

1988	30 July	Concord Oval, Sydney	Australia	9–30	New Zealand
	16 July	Ballymore Stadium, Brisbane		19–19
	3 July	Concord Oval, Sydney		7–32

The 1990s – A decade of dominance 

It was 1990 and New Zealand rugby was on a roll. During the second half of the 1980s New Zealand rugby were dominant. At provincial level they won the South Pacific Championships every year of its existence.

At the national level, the All Blacks seemed invincible.  They experienced their longest unbeaten streak in Test rugby of 23 Tests from 1987 to 1990, with one game being drawn and the rest victorious. [11]  For four years between 1986 and 1990, Australia was unsuccessful against the All Blacks.[12]

This changed on the 18^th of August 1990 at Athletic Park, Wellington.

Date	Venue	Score	Winner	Competition
18 August 1990	Athletic Park, Wellington	9 – 21	Australia	1990 Bledisloe Cup
4 August 1990	Eden Park, Auckland	27 – 17	New Zealand
21 July 1990	Lancaster Park, Christchurch	21 – 6	New Zealand
5 August 1989	Eden Park, Auckland	24 – 12	New Zealand	1989 Bledisloe Cup
30 July 1988	Concord Oval, Sydney	9 – 30	New Zealand	1988 Bledisloe Cup
16 July 1988	Ballymore Stadium, Brisbane	19 – 19	draw
3 July 1988	Concord Oval, Sydney	7 – 32	New Zealand
25 July 1987	Concord Oval, Sydney	16 – 30	New Zealand	1987 Bledisloe Cup
6 Sept 1986	Eden Park, Auckland	9 – 22	Australia	1986 Bledisloe Cup

This was a turning point in the belief for Australian rugby. After half a decade of non-dominance, this result signaled a new decade, one in which they would win many times, including two Rugby World Cups.

We had a turning point against New Zealand in 1990 in the last Test of the tour and from that moment the group knew they had an opportunity or at least the goods to match it with New Zealand on any given day and that was what we built on.[13]

One of the ‘memorable moments’ of that game was described as follows:

The third Test is still implanted in Australian minds. There was only one try scored, and that was by Kearns, who surged over the line and stepped into history as he invited Sean Fitzpatrick to ‘two barbecues’ with a typically Churchillean two-fingered gesture. The 21 to 9 victory ended a 50-match and 23-Test unbeaten sequence for the All Blacks. They showed that New Zealand could be beaten by positiveness and determination.[14] [15]

Another media article put it this way:

The third test, however, would be somewhat of a turning point for both teams. Australia won 21-9, thanks to five penalty goals by Lynagh, but also to that memorable try by Kearns and the even more memorable ‘celebration’ afterwards (see clip below).  The win gave a young Wallaby outfit some real belief as they halted the All Blacks’ record run of victories – 50 games and 23 tests.[16]

Another great example of the shift in self-belief by the Wallabies towards the All Blacks was when back rower Sam Scott-Young took up blowing kisses and winking at the All Blacks as they performed the haka.  In 1992 the Wallabies won the series with incidents such as this part of the fabric.

The Wallabies had gone from a team in fear of the All Blacks and expecting to lose, to a team that respected rather than feared them and expected to win.

Post 2000 – The decline and drought

In 2001 Australian won the southern hemisphere Tri-nations. The only times it has won it since have been 2011 and 2015, which were World Cup Years. In World Cup years the competition is shortened so that each nation only plays each other once, not the usual twice.

August 2001 was the last time the Wallabies have won a test match against the All Blacks in New Zealand.  (Australia hasn’t won a Test match at Eden Park, Auckland, since 1986)

2002 was the last time Australian won the Bledisloe Cup. In a best of two Bledisloe series, Australia retained the Cup with a single win of 16-14 win in Sydney.  That was the fifth year in a row holding the Cup, and the last year as the end of 2022. That’s twenty (20) years of failing to secure the Cup.

Looking at the team photo from the 2002 Sydney Bledisloe match, about half the team spent a lot of their career in my care. Many of them retired soon after.

On November 12, 2005, the Australian scrum was so savaged by the English scrum during a Wallaby tour game that the game ended with uncontested scrums. English prop Andrew Sheridan appeared to ‘deadlift’ the Australian scrum off the ground, and they were marched backwards distances rarely seen in Test rugby.

In the lead up to the 2017 Bledisloe Cup series, Australia Wallaby Coach conducted higher volume training months to ‘prepare the team for the games against the All Blacks. 

Cheika suggested the Wallabies’ sub-standard displays against Scotland and Italy was in part due to their higher training workloads in camp.

“If we didn’t do it over these three weeks and start that, it’ll be too late for later on,” he said. “Maybe that’s taken some of the edge off some of our performances because we’ve been going hard at it. [17]

How effective was this?

The first Bledisloe Cup game was played in Sydney, a great advantage for the Wallabies. They could get off to a first up win as you would expect from a home game, and in the best of three series they had two home games (played in Australia).  This is a recipe for a successful series.

In the first Test in Sydney the All Blacks scored 54 points in the first 48 minutes of play…

If Australian rugby fans needed any further reminding of the poor state of the game in this country it was provided by the All Blacks, who destroyed the Wallabies 54-34 in their Bledisloe Cup encounter in Sydney.

The final score line flattered the Wallabies, who were outclassed at the Olympic stadium by the All Blacks, with the World Cup winners taking their foot off the pedal after they led 54-6 early in the second half courtesy of eight tries…[18]

Here are some unenviable records created by the 2017 Bledisloe Cup results:

* It was the most points the All Blacks had ever scored against the Wallabies;

* A crowd of just 54,846 spectators, the lowest ever for a Bledisloe Cup match at the Olympic stadium, were witnessing one of the Wallabies’ worst performances [19]

* The 2017 loss made it 15 years in a row of New Zealand winning the Cup, the longest unbeaten run in the history of the Trans-Tasman competition.

The Wallabies went on to lose the second Bledisloe Cup game in Dunedin the following weekend, although the score was closer at 35-29.

The third game, a dead rubber, was played in Brisbane, with the Wallabies winning the game 23-18. The media and Australian rugby public did their best to see hope in this result.

Twelve months later, how was that fitness focus working? The following is the one of the headlines from the first match, in Sydney on Saturday 18^th August 2018.

All Blacks dismantle stunned Wallabies with clinical second-half display[20]

Bledisloe disaster as All Blacks thrash Wallabies 38-13 in Sydney[21]

It was 6-5 to Australia at half-time. The second half score was 7-33 in favor of the All Blacks.  Interesting, especially in relation to the yearlong focus on ‘fitness’.

The second and deciding 2018 Bledisloe Cup game?

Bledisloe Cup: All Blacks thrash Wallabies 40-12 in Auckland[22]

That made it sixteen (16) years since Australia won the Bledisloe Cup.

Keep in mind this was after the June tour series by Ireland in Australia, where the Wallabies lost the series 2-1.

The rhetoric and blame-game hasn’t stopped. Former Wallaby coach Bob Dwyer jumped on the bandwagon in 2018, following yet another year of dismal Bledisloe Cup performances, the fourth year of Cheika being in charge.

‘They’re not fit enough’: Dwyer takes aim at Wallabies players, not Cheika

World Cup-winning Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer has pointed the finger at Australian players and not under-siege coach Michael Cheika, claiming in the wake of another embarrassing defeat to New Zealand that they are not fit enough.

The fallout has continued from Australia’s 40-12 loss to the All Blacks at Eden Park, which completed their 16th consecutive Bledisloe Cup series defeat, and the attention has now been turned onto the players’ condition.

Last year in June, Cheika put his foot down and stated publicly that players’ fitness was not where it needed to be. He put his men through brutal fitness sessions in the lead-up to the Rugby Championship but, like this year, they were unable to knock off the world’s best team.

Even as recently as Sunday, the day after the Wallabies’ sixth loss from seven Tests, Cheika reiterated his view that fitness levels were superior to 2017.

“[Fitness] still can improve but I think it’s better,” he said. “It’s about the key moments and reacting mentally with urgency to shut those situations down.

Dwyer is a former coach of Cheika’s at Randwick and considered a mentor, for him.  Bob knows all about pressure on national coaches. Unlike Bob, Michael doesn’t have the physical preparation program that Bob had between 1988 and end of his (second) tenure as Wallaby head coach.

There is a great saying in the Australian workers vernacular:

A poor tradesman blames his tools.

The solution – transplant New Zealand Coaches in Australian

It would appear from the last two decades the Australian rugby solution for the challenge of beating the All Blacks was to hire New Zealand coaches.

Is this an effective strategy? We don’t have to speculate. We have three former high level New Zealand coaches who have been transplanted into Australia during the last twenty years.

In 2006 Mitchell became the first ever coach to coach an Australian provincial franchise. John Mitchell coached the All Blacks for about two years between 2001 and 2003, with an 82% win loss record. Not bad, but not good enough for the New Zealand expectations, thus his relatively short tenure.

In his five seasons with the Australian provincial team the Western Forces in the southern hemisphere Super Rugby completion his best result was 7^th place, and I estimate his win loss ratio at about 20%.

Next came Robbie Deans. Robbie Deans won two Super rugby championships with the Canterbury Crusaders and on that basis became the first non-Australian coach of the Wallabies. In his five or so years as Australia’s national coach, Deans achieved a 59% win-loss ratio.

Next came Dave Rennie. Dave Rennie won two Super rugby championships with the Waikato Chiefs and on that basis became the second non-Australian coach of the Wallabies, only seven years after Deans had departed.  He achieved a 36% win loss record over his three years.

I’d conclude that this solution failed.

Conclusion

Statistically speaking Australian must win a Bledisloe series sooner or later, and every year passing makes this sooner.

Will the so called ‘Golden Era’ of rugby return?

During the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s an Australian player pool was developed that produced what became known as the ‘Golden Era’. It was not the first golden era, but it was the last.

So, what happened that left Australian rugby devoid of golden eras?

When success is created, greed arrives.  I witnessed this firsthand during the mid 1990s when Queensland rugby established itself as the best provincial team in the world.

I witnessed this firsthand in the late 1990s when the Australian national rugby team won its second Rugby World Cup.

Individuals were given or sought to take credit:

Coach Rod Macqueen and Captain John Eales lead Australia through a golden age of Australian Rugby. [23]

“From a sport that was really living on the smell of an oily rag, we became profitable, we held every trophy possible,” O’Neill said.  “It was a remarkable five year period – a purple patch, a golden era that hasn’t been repeated – sadly.”

Let’s be clear – the success of the late 1990s and early 2002s was borne out of period and efforts and systems where neither of those individuals could take any credit for.

The following quote is relevant:

Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.[24]

Individuals and organizations sought to benefit financially from the success.  Put simply, I believe Australian rugby killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

The 1990s was a Golden Era – not just 1999-2001, where the Australian rugby union team full of players developed in a national talent identification program the likes never seen before in world rugby during the prior decade.

Former Australian National Coaching Director Dick  Marks summed this up very accurately:

“But … the greatest inheritance of all … (was) the 1996 squad of Wallabies, the most talented and best-nurtured ever assembled in this country – and all produced under a pre-O’Neill regime… It is not hard to be seen to be doing a good job when you inherit the best team in history.” [25]

Even an article from published out of Japan more accurately described the build-up that resulted in the peak of 2000 (followed by the immediate decline):

… we take a closer look at the two-time World Champions to give our Japanese fans some insight into the history of Australian rugby, its Golden Generations of the 80s, 90s and early-2000s…[26]

Perhaps if Australian rugby had the character of Canterbury Rugby Union (the Crusaders) there would be more hope to have held on to the greatness that was created in Australian provincial (Queensland Reds followed by the ACT Brumbies) and national (Wallabies) rugby during the 1990s.

But it didn’t.

In my opinion the game was so abused in Australia during the late 1990s/early 2000 period by those who sought to turn its beauty into power that the recovery period has been extensive.

When will Australian rugby experience another ‘golden era’?   Time will tell!

—-

This article is formed with extracts from the book ‘You Can’t Do That! Lessons from a lifetime of helping rugby players, teams & coaches’.

 

References

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_in_New_Zealand#:~:text=New%20Zealand%2C%20commonly%20referred%20to,Ground%20on%2015%20August%201903.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bledisloe_Cup

[3] History of rugby union matches between Australia and New Zealand, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rugby_union_matches_between_Australia_and_New_Zealand  (with percentage added)

[4] 1980 New Zealand rugby union tour of Australia and Fiji, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_New_Zealand_rugby_union_tour_of_Australia_and_Fiji

[5] 1982 Australia rugby union tour of New Zealand, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Australia_rugby_union_tour_of_New_Zealand

[6] Bledisloe Cup, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bledisloe_Cup

[7] 1984 New Zealand rugby union tour of Australia, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_Zealand_rugby_union_tour_of_Australia

[8] 1986 Australia rugby union tour of New Zealand, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Australia_rugby_union_tour_of_New_Zealand

[9] Bledisloe Cup, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bledisloe_Cup

[10] 1988 New Zealand rugby union tour of Australia, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_New_Zealand_rugby_union_tour_of_Australia

[11] New Zealand National Rugby Union Team, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_national_rugby_union_team#Overall

[12] History of rugby union matches between Australia and New Zealand, Wikipedia,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rugby_union_matches_between_Australia_and_New_Zealand

[13] Rusty, 2015, Win over All Blacks sparked ’91 campaign,  Qld Reds 30 Oct 2015, http://www.redsrugby.com.au/News/NewsArticles/tabid/581/ArticleID/16873/WIN-OVER-ALL-BLACKS-SPARKED-’91-CAMPAIGN.aspx

[14] Phillip Kearns, Hooker, Wallaby #681 http://www.aru.com.au/wallabies/TheTeam/HistoricalWallabiesPlayerProfile.aspx?pid=763

[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiIZ_BZNiUA

[16] Roberts, R., 2010, A RWC Retrospective: 19911 vs. 2011, Green and Gold Rugby, 7 July 2010, http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/a-rwc-wallaby-retrospective-comparing-1991-to-2011/

[17] Wallabies not fit enough for Test rugby, Stephen Moore says, ESPN, 24 June 2017, http://www.espn.com.au/rugby/story/_/id/19724368/wallabies-not-fit-enough-test-rugby-stephen-moore-says

[18] Bledisloe Cup: Wallabies thrashed by All Blacks 54-34 in series opener in Sydney, ,ABC News, 19 Aug 2017, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-19/bledisloe-cup-all-backs-thrash-wallabies/8823162

[19] Bledisloe Cup: Wallabies thrashed by All Blacks 54-34 in series opener in Sydney

,ABC News, 19 Aug 2017, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-19/bledisloe-cup-all-backs-thrash-wallabies/8823162

[20] Morgan, C. 2018, All Blacks dismantle stunned Wallabies, Telegraph, 18 Aug 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2018/08/18/australia-vs-new-zealand-bledisloe-cup-live-score-updates/

[21] Worthington, S., All Blacks thrash Wallabies, Fox Sports, 19 Aug 2018, https://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/bledisloe-cup/follow-all-the-action-as-the-wallabies-v-all-blacks-in-bledisloe-i/news-story/2bd3de728bf9d52916f0660813b8f2b6

[22] Worthington, S., Bledisloe Cup: All Blacks thrash Wallabies 40-12 in Auckland, Fox Sports, 19 Aug 2018, https://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/wallabies/bledisloe-cup-live-coverage-of-all-blacks-v-wallabies-test-in-auckland/news-story/77e62317ed71a3dc0e509e5247324d33

[23] https://www.legendsunderglassframing.com/product-page/the-golden-age-of-australian-rugby-ru35

[24] https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Success-has-many-fathers-but-failure-is-an-orphan

[25] https://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/marks-questions-oneills-success/news-story/b61ecd2fea9da4788805ca548a78b5ea

[26] http://en.rugby-japan.jp/2021/10/20/green-and-gold-rugby-a-brief-history-of-the-wallabies/